


Nobody Knows

by Peggo



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: Fluff, Fools, Idiots in Love, M/M, ah well, he's not even in the fic, i don't know what to tag it, im distracted, jimmy just got 600 wickets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26107408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peggo/pseuds/Peggo
Summary: Jos and Joe think no one knows about their relationship.How wrong they are.
Relationships: Ben Stokes/Mark Wood, Dom Bess/Sam Curran, I think - Relationship, Joe Root/Jos Buttler, Jonny Bairstow/Chris Woakes, Rory Burns/Ollie Pope, implied: - Relationship, tbh i can't remember
Comments: 20
Kudos: 14





	Nobody Knows

**Author's Note:**

> i know i've done something very very very similar to this of the team not knowing so maybe i'm just reinventing the wheel but i quite liked the idea of everyone knowing that jos and joe are josandjoe and jos and joe thinking they're successfully hiding their relationship.

Jos grumbles as Joe tries to extract himself from Jos’ arms, reaching out to try and see who's be calling him this early. When he manages to locate his phone and checks who’s calling he swears loudly, causing Jos to kiss the crook of his neck on autopilot, 

“Ben’s calling, I completely forgot I agreed to breakfast in town, shit me it's a Saturday, _fuck_.” He scrambles out of bed, grabbing some jeans off the ground and a shirt, Jos watching him but making no move to get up. When Joe turns around in a hunt for socks, Jos groans. 

“Babe, you can’t wear that shirt- your neck,” he looks around, trying to find something with a higher collar, “just, wear a hoodie or something, that should cover it.”

Joe’s hand goes up to his collar bones, where a line of bruises had bloomed, rolling his eyes at Jos, and grabbing a hoodie from the chair by the door, 

“See you later, I’ll be back in like an hour or two!”

“Have a nice breakfast, darling!”

Ben’s waiting for him in their corner of the café that they always have breakfast in, and when he sees Joe’s car pull up outside he rolls his eyes, lips quirking up. He’s known Joe since they were teenagers, and he has yet to be on time for anything they do together, and by now would be more surprised if Joe arrived on time. The bell tinkles as Joe opens the door, looking slightly harried and with _very_ messy hair, and he hurries over, sitting down opposite Ben and apologising for the delay. 

Ellie, their waitress, comes over with the drinks that Ben had ordered before Joe had got there, and places the tea in front of Joe, who beams and thanks her, and looking at Ben like he always did, every single time Ben knew he wanted a cuppa, as though he was a mindreader. They order their food, and Ellie leaves them be, and they start to catch up. 

When the cutlery arrives Joe moves to take his jacket off, dragging the collar of his hoodie slightly down before he manages to readjust the way it was sitting and Ben nearly does a double take at the purple patch nestled in the crook of Joe’s neck. Even more alarming is Joe’s hoodie that is now on show, having taken off his denim jacket, revealing a Lancashire County Cricket Jumper, with its red rose emblem displayed on his chest, under which are the initials JCB. 

When Ellie makes her way back, with a fry up for Ben and pancakes for Joe, she raises an eyebrow at Joe, asking them if that would be all, though she barely acknowledges Ben, staring at Joe’s chest, and as she walks away Joe asks Ben, 

“Do I have something on my face, or something?” 

Ben laughs, shaking his head and asking Joe to pass the ketchup. As he dollops some out onto the side of his plate he looks back at Joe, grinning and says, 

“Didn’t know you were a Lancashire Cricket Club kind of guy, Joe.” 

Joe’s brow creases in confusion before he looks down at his jumper, crimson spreading down his neck and tinting the tops of his ears. He steadfastly ignores Ben’s gaze, cutting himself another forkful of pancake, before replying 

“Jos must’ve left it in my car after that match at Headingley.”, he takes a bite, chewing slowly as Ben hums, waiting for further explanation, “and it was, erm, it was colder than I expected this morning, and than I’d dressed for, so I just grabbed it and put it on without realising when I got out my car.”

Ben grins at Joe, who still looks slightly uncomfortable, and has slid somewhat down his chair, 

“Fair enough, Joey, it’s just a surprise to see you sporting the red rose, that’s all.” Joe laughs, joking about desperate times calling for desperate measures, before swiftly changing the subject and asking whether Ben and Mark were able to get the sofa delivery delayed to next Wednesday, or whether they were going to have to cancel their day trip to Scarborough so they’ll be at home to let the delivery men in.

When their meals are finished and the lads realise they have to get going and actually get stuff done, Ben watches, bemused, as Joe gets in his car, thinking back to when he’d said goodbye to Jos yesterday on the bus where Jos had been wearing that jumper, a week after their Headingley trip.

* * *

Jos offers to drive Dom to training in Birmingham, since he was in Somerset spending the weekend with his family anyway and Dom had never made the drive to Edgbaston before. Dom accepts the offer, putting his mum at ease somewhat who had visions of Dom getting horribly lost, never making it to training and losing his spot in the England side. Dom had tried telling his mum that that wasn’t going to be the case, but it had helped her to know that Jos would be there ( _because if you do get lost they can’t get rid of the both of you, could they, my lovely_ ). 

Jos pulls into Dom’s drive and gets out to open his boot as Dom lugs his kit bag down to the car. Dom’s mum comes out to send them off, handing Dom a packed lunch, much to his embarrassment and Jos’ bemusement, and they get in, with promises to text upon arrival. 

Dom buckles his seat belt, Jos’ hand behind his headrest as he reversed out of the drive and suddenly Dom understood what Sam meant when he said Jos had sexy dad vibes, and as they pulled out onto the main road Jos flicked some music on, apologising as he did so. 

“Sorry, this is all we’ve got, my bluetooth system’s not working, I’m not too sure why, to be honest, I’m hoping to take it in for repairs by the end of the month, but until then all we’ve got going for us are CDs.” 

_Do I Wanna Know_ filters through Jos’ sound system and Dom fights hard to keep a smirk off his face, but because he’s not a fucking _saint_ he can’t stop the, 

“Didn’t know you were an Arctic Monkeys kinda guy, Jos,” from falling from his lips, noticing how Jos grips the steering wheel a little harder at that statement, 

“Oh erm, yeah. It’s...yeah. It’s good stuff. I saw them with a… a friend in Sheffield a couple of years ago, actually. It’s not necessarily my vibe but he really likes them and, like I said. Good stuff.”

_Good stuff._

It takes everything Dom has not to laugh. He went to _Sheffield_ , a solid hour and a half from Manchester, and well over three hours from Somerset, to see _Arctic Monkeys_ , with their _eighty quid tickets_ who weren’t even ‘necessarily his vibe’ with their ‘good stuff’, which seemed like a lot of effort if you asked him. 

Dom thinks back to his chat with Joe about a week or two earlier. He’d had a nets session and been having trouble with some back foot playing, and the coach had told him it might be worth trying to grab a chat with Joe about it, if he got the opportunity. Joe had approached him the next day to let him know he had time this evening, if Dom still wanted to chat back foot playing and he’d been in Joe’s room for about an hour, discussing back foot playing, triggers and then moving onto spin bowling. Dom had noticed that was one of the things about Joe; he always worked to make sure you felt just as valuable, asking for tips about grip and spin that Dom was sure he must already know to help put him at ease. 

Joe had had the same album playing on his radio, and when Dom had found himself humming along to _Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High,_ the conversation had moved onto bands and music. Joe had told Dom about the time he’d seen Arctic Monkeys live at the O2 Academy in Sheffield for his birthday a couple of years ago with his ‘family and, erm, with family’, and what a great night it had been. The CD then had had the same scratch on the line ‘organic cigarettes that she smokes’, too, restarting the line a couple of times before it moved on, just like Jos' did. 

When the CD ends, the whirring sound coming from the machine before silence that lets you know that the album’s finished at the end of _I Wanna Be Yours,_ Jos tells him that the case is in the glove compartment and there are some other CDs in there if he fancies, or they could just stick the radio on. Dom opens up the glove compartment, finding an eclectic mix of CDs from various charity shops with the _50p_ stickers still attached and Dom goes to replace the _AM_ disc with Jeff Buckley’s _Grace_ . Slotting _AM_ back in his case the corners of his lips quirk up, sending a sideways glance at Jos, who is flicking on his indicator to ‘take the first exit towards the M5 slip road to The Midlands’ whatever the fuck that meant Dom thought, grateful he wasn't driving, as Jos obediently follows his SacNav’s instructions. 

The CD case has the same crack across the front that Joe’s had had, and if that wasn’t enough, the little pamphlet had _JE Root_ written in the corner. 

Dom looks back at Jos, and wonders who he thinks he’s fooling. 

* * *

Jonny watches Chris under the streetlights on the way back to the hotel, as Chris dances ahead and turns to face Jonny, cheekbones accentuated by the orange light and holding their leftovers from the restaurant above his head. They’d just won a series a couple of days before and were all staying in the hotel for a while before dispersing back to their relative corners of the country and Jonny and Chris had gone out for dinner to celebrate together having both had a good series, and followed that up with a few drinks in a bar (that might have turned into a bit more than a few drinks). 

They make their way back to the hotel, swinging their hands between them and smiling at the receptionist, who smiles back at the two lads making their way back to their room. As they get out of the lift and get to their room, they begin to pat down their pockets in an attempt to find their keys (or rather, Jonny went to find his keys as Chris sat himself down, leaning against the corridor wall and opening his take away and tucking in again, and Jonny doesn’t know how he’s still eating because they’ve _just eaten_ the _biggest meal_ of their lives.) 

As Jonny is turning to Chris to tell him that he thinks Chris might have their keys in their wallet, remember, because they’d met in the foyer because he’d been catching had a phone call, the door to their left opens and Jos comes out, turning to walk down the hall towards his room. 

“Alright, Jos? Late night visit to see our skip, eh?” asks Chris, still on the floor and hands covered in tomato sauce. 

Jos starts, as though he hadn’t expected to encounter anyone on his short walk three doors down to his room, which, Jonny supposes, was a pretty fair assumption to make at half two in the morning. Jos manages a smile at the two of them, and Chris waves back, licking his fingers clean and then wiping them down on his trousers, much to Jonny’s disgust, 

“Oh, hi guys, I didn’t think anyone else would, would still be up.” His eyes flick between the two of them, and then to behind Jonny, where his door is, “We were, we were just discussing how we could. How we could maybe come up to the stumps more, you know, and erm, other stuff.” 

“I get it,” says Chris, smiling before extending a hand out to Jonny, waiting for Jonny to haul him to his feet, and honestly why does Jonny put up with this much shit, “Sometimes Jonny and I like to stay up late and _talk tactics_.” He shoots Jonny a wink, and Jonny remembers exactly why he puts up with Chris. 

Jos, for his part misses the innuendo, instead looking relieved, 

“Yeah, talk tactics. And Joe wanted to talk about the ODIs coming up, too. How we might want to approach their quicks, and who we’d rather face, that kind of thing.”

Jonny almost feels sorry for Jos, because he knows that is probably _exactly_ what Jos and Joe were talking about, among other things because that’s the kind of people they both were, but Chris’ eyes are twinkling with mirth, 

“Mmhmm, Jonny and I know what you mean, we chat about that kind of thing too. Jonny would take a quickie over a spin.” 

Jonny’s eyebrows climb into his hairline, face flushing, and it’s a testament to how distracted and tired Jos is that he simply nods absentmindedly, glancing back at Joe’s room and missing the blatant innuendo. 

Instead he clears his throat, returning his attention to Chris and Jonny, Chris having by now found their key cards in his wallet and handing it over to Jonny, 

“Anyway,” Jos says, smiling at them both tiredly and covering a yawn with the back of his hand, “It’s late. I might try hit the hay, g’night lads.” 

They bid him goodnight too, opening their door, and watching as he returns to their room. Chris goes to put what’s left of his leftovers in the minifridge and Jonny drops their keys and wallets on the side table. He smiles as Chris lies down on their bed, plugging his phone into his charger and Jonny lies next to him, bundling him up in his arms. Jonny lets his mind wonder, thinking of his fellow Yorkie in the room next door, who religiously tries to go to bed before eleven if he can help it, to try and give his mind the hour or two it needs to settle before he can actually get some sleep, and his fellow wicketkeeper, who is usually the first to seize the opportunity for a crass joke, despite what his soft demeanour might suggest and he smiles to himself as he flicks the lights off, Chris already out like a light next to him. 

* * *

Ollie thinks the day he heard Jos, sweet and soft spoken Jos, let out a barrage of swears that would have made nuns faint is one to write in the diary. 

They’ve done well this match, and they’re into their second innings with a considerable lead. Ollie’s making himself a cuppa, while the rest of the lads are in the dressing room and there’s drizzle in the air so the boys are in the dressing room watching the match on the screen in the corner, and light’s not been ideal. As he stirs the milk into his tea, (and _doesn’t_ wrinkle his nose at how much milk Rory likes in his tea, absolutely not), he hears a collective intake of breath from the room next door and a couple of exhaled swears. 

Abandoning the teaspoon on the counter he rushes through to see what happened, in time to see a replay of Joe being hit flush on the knee, buckling down to sit on the ground and crying out in pain, as the opposition team appealed for LBW. He stood in the doorway, watching as Craig their physio raced down to the pitch and noticed Jos clenching and unclenching his fists while taking deep breaths in and out. 

He’d never seen Jos like this before, grinding his teeth, and when Chris Silverwood asked him if he was OK he didn’t answer with his usual chipper smile, but rather a tight lipped smile as he crossed his arms, fists still clenched. 

Craig returned to the dressing room, being met at the door by a concerned Broady and Ben, as he announced that Joe ‘unsurprisingly was in a spot of bother, but really he’ll be OK’ and Ollie zoned out of his update, returning to the kitchen to fetch his and Rory’s teas. 

Jos is unusually jumpy for the rest of the innings, watching every ball keenly and snapping when Mark’s socks hit him on the back of the head, sending them back in the direction they came of with a glare that takes Ben and Mark slightly by surprise and cause them to mute their games somewhat.

Ollie nearly spills the remainder of his tea down himself when Jos jolts to his feet and kicks the locker, breathing out a stream of curses under his breath as he does so. Ollie looks at the screen in time to catch a nasty bouncer catch Joe on his grille, breaking the grille into his lip and _ouch_ , that’ll be one swollen lip tomorrow. 

As Craig runs out again, ready to carry out concussion checks and with a new helmet, and Rory watches the replay, wincing in sympathy, Ollie watches Jos curse the bowlers and the opposition in a decidedly _not_ sportsmanly or gentlemanly manner. Jos goes to meet Craig on the stairs as he returns from the middle, with Joe’s broken helmet in one hand, going to ask him how Joe was doing, and did he still seem in pain from his knee, Craig?

Ollie leans back against Rory, pads still on, even though there was now only about ten, maybe fifteen, minutes of play remaining. 

Joe and Zak saw the day through, and everyone got ready to applaud their efforts as they came back into the dressing room. No one was ready for how slowly their captain would make his way up the stairs, attempting to hide his grimaces whenever he put weight on his injured knee. He stumbles slightly over a glove on the floor as he enters the room, smiling at the applause and whoops he’s met with, and Jos is by his side straight away, steadying him on his feet before jumping away from Joe as though he’d been scalded, looking around sheepishly at the other lads. Ollie wonders what that was all about as he removes his own pads and starts packing up, trying to work out why Jos had jumped away from Joe again.

On their way back to the hotel Rory slips his hand into Ollie’s and bumps his shoulder, 

“Do they really still think we don’t know?” 

_Ah. That was why._

_Idiots._

* * *

Not many people come to watch their warm up matches, Ben thinks looking around Old Trafford as a Durham v Lancashire friendly comes to a close, but the fans that _do_ turn up aren’t half bad. They’ve been singing (and drinking) all day, and although they need eight wickets in the next half hour to win, the Durham fans’ enthusiasm hasn’t ebbed one bit (except for the old couple who had left at about lunch, but Ben’s not sure they were going to enjoy it whatever happened judging by how sour their faces had been on arrival.)

As Rob Jones flicks the ball neatly for four to win, and a cheer goes up from the Lancashire bench, Ben catches Mark’s eye and mouths _Chinese?_ receiving a thumbs up in response. 

They make their way to the car park, lugging their kits and trying to fit them both into the boot of Mark’s ridiculously small car, launching into their well worn debate that _Mark, you really need a new car there is literally no room for our stuff_ and _But I love Betty_.

Ben was trying to work out how he might be able to fit his spare bat alongside the kit bags that hadn’t quite managed to squeeze into his kit bag (and that’s more ammunition for Mark, that his kit bag’s too big in the first place, and actually it _wasn't_ Betty's fault), he sees a mop of blonde exit the stands and make its way over to a car a couple of rows ahead of theirs. 

He elbows Mark in the ribs, hard, causing Mark to yelp and ask, 

“What the fuck was that for, Ben, it’s not that difficult to put your kit bag in my boot, is it?”

And it is, but that’s _not the point_ , thinks Ben, instead jerking his head towards the blonde man, who is leaning on the red car ahead of them, hands in his pocket and music on in his earbuds. 

And it would just be _rude_ not to go over and say hello to their skip, wouldn’t it. 

He doesn’t hear them coming until they’re right next to him, starting slightly, before removing his earbuds from his ears and smiling at them, 

“Great game, lads, shame about the result though, I thought you both played beautifully!”

They thank him, asking him how he’s been, what he’s been up to, and finally, 

“What brings you to this neck of the woods then, skip?” Mark asks, the _picture of innocence_ , ruining the illusion slightly by grinning mischievously and adding, “Surely you didn’t come to Old Trafford just to watch a _friendly_ between your nemeses, Lancs, versus Durham?”

Joe flushed, fiddling with the wires of his earbuds and tapping his toe slightly, 

“Oh, erm, I was just, you know, in the area, doing some. Some shopping?” He frames his reasoning as a question, and his eyes seem to be _begging_ Ben and Mark to just believe him without any questioning. 

They take pity on him, asking him if he’d bought anything nice, and OK maybe they didn’t take pity on him, but _shopping._ _C’mon now Joe, you’re better than that._

Joe is saved from having to elaborate on his shopping haul, as Jos comes out of the Lancs dressing room, hurrying over and apologising for being late. He pulls up short as he sees Ben and Mark, looking at Joe quickly. 

“Oh, did you know Joe had some shopping to do near Old Trafford, Jos?” Mark asks, chipper and easy as anything, and Ben rolls his eyes. 

They’ve so obviously come together it’s painful; for starters that’s _Joe_ ’s car that Jos is loading his kit bag into, there’s no shopping in the back, and Jos’ car _isn’t even there_ so did Joe come to Old Trafford for his shopping at like six am, Jos saw it on SnapMaps and invite him for a full day of cricket? Is that what Joe and Jos think they’ve managed to convince Mark and Ben? 

They’re ridiculous. 

* * *

There’s nothing like a series whitewash win to get spirits high. 4-0 to England and the lads are buzzing. 

Joe’s given a speech, champagne has gone flying and press is over. Joe stands on the bench, dodging a water bottle and tries to regain some semblance of order. When his third attempt to be heard has little impact on the noise levels of the dressing room, he looks helplessly at Jos, who claps his hands together three times loudly, interrupting the lads’ chatter. They settle down, turning to face Joe, with Ollie coming to lean against Rory, and Mark resting his head in the curve of Ben’s neck. 

Joe grins at everyone from his vantage point, congratulating the lads for their performances, complimenting individuals for their own contributions, before raising his beer at the end to cheers and whoops as he toasts their victory. He clambers down from the bench, going over to join Ben and congratulate him. 

Chris Silverwood comes in about a half hour later to let them know that they’ve managed to book a bar for them, the opposition, family and friends so _go get yourself looking orderly, please for the love of God have a shower, the bus leaves in an hour don't be late_ and the lads troop off from the dressing room to the hotel with various degrees of urgency. 

Halfway back to the hotel Zak starts to pat down his pockets, a small crease in his forehead and Broady hangs back as Zak stops, sighing and Broady checks if he’s OK. 

“Yeah, thanks Broady, I think I must’ve left my phone in my kit bag,” he checks his jacket one last time, before heaving out another sigh, shoulders slumping. 

Stuart offers to come with him, much to Zak’s relief (since he is of the opinion that having a senior bowler, _especially Broady_ , on your side always helped in a sticky situation.) Now he won't have a sticky run in with a member of the ground staff asking him what he was doing while he floundered despite being there perfectly legitimately, because _who_ is going to question Stuart Broad.

He needn’t have worried, as it turns out; when they let themselves into the dressing room the lights are still on and nothing’s been locked up yet. He makes his way to his bag and rummages through his bag, and Broady looks through his locker for him. Zak finds his phone at the bottom of his bag, and he's sure his screen wasn’t cracked when he’d put it in for god’s sake, and he straightens up to show Broady, turning and instead finding himself looking at Jos, hair mussed and lips swollen, framed in the doorway. 

He looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights as he stands there, face to face with Zak, who looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else in the world right now, and Broady, who looks like Christmas has come early with childlike glee on his face. 

Before Jos has the opportunity to fabricate an explanation, a voice calls from behind him out of sight, 

“Oh and don’t forget my mum will want us round for dinner next Saturday, Jossy, so we should maybe ask Soph if we could-” and Joe appears behind Jos’ shoulder, immediately flushing and taking a half step behind Jos when he sees they’re not alone. 

“Oh, hi lads, can we help you with, erm, with anything?” Joe manages, and Zak looks to Broady to take the lead, because he has feels so underprepared for this, wishing the floor would just open up and eat him, but Broady’s shaking with mirth and no help whatsoever. Joe’s knees are dusty and similarly to Jos his hair was much messier than it had been when he’d made his speech. 

“You know-” Broady starts, looking from Jos to Joe, “you know we know about you two, right?” Jos and Joe look at each other, and Broady takes a deep breath in and out, the exhale quivering somewhat as he tries hard not to laugh. “We’re all OK with it, you now. We've known since Jos’ test debut, you’ve never been as subtle as you think. I’d go so far as to say that you are the only people in the team who think the team don’t know you’re dating. Now. Zak needed to retrieve his phone, so we’re going to go back to the hotel now. Don’t be late for the bus.” He throws them a wink, before gliding past Jos and Joe with the air of some sort of prima donna heiress and Zak scrambles after him. He hears Joe hum, before saying, 

“Wait. We weren’t even dating on your debut.” 

* * *

(And when, at the afterparty, Joe has had a few drinks and starts clinging onto Jos, and they dance together and Jos carries him home, then it’s about bloody time they stopped hiding.)

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed it, sorry if it was a bit samey !!!  
> as ever, let me know if you liked it, or how i could improve !!  
> lots of love,  
> peg  
> xx


End file.
